TrackInsight: A roller-coaster ride for the first week of 2019!

January 10, 2019

Shares were on a roller-coaster ride for the first week of the year, going up on Wednesday, plunging on Thursday and then recovering on Friday when the U.S. payrolls report showed that 312,000 net new jobs were created in December (a level not seen since February 2018), while wages rose at a strong annual pace of 3.2 percent.

This gives us a foretaste of what we can expect in 2019, a year which will be at least as volatile as 2018. At the end of the week, the S&P500 was up 1 percent while the MSCI EMU gained 1.49 percent. Asian indices lagged behind (Hang Seng: -0.89 percent, Nikkei: -2.26 percent). The best sectors were energy (+4.56 percent), as crude oil prices rebounded sharply (WTI: +7.5 percent), and telecommunication services (+4.02 percent). The poorest performers were health care, information technology and utilities, which started the year with a slightly negative performance, the latter two experiencing the most significant outflows.

The US 10-year Treasury yield remained relatively stable around 265bps, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell seeking to ease market concerns about the risk of a slowdown, saying the central bank would be patient and flexible in monetary policy decisions this year.